


ambitions.

by colloquialrhapsodist



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, it's not a ship just an interesting dynamic.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:56:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3140108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colloquialrhapsodist/pseuds/colloquialrhapsodist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>– may talks, and envy bides their time. seven 100 word vignettes of may and envy traveling. because all it takes is seven little sins to make a huge mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ambitions.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the spiritual successor to the fic I wrote a few days ago, 'i'll cut your little heart out.' Read them in either order, honestly - and that one's really messy and mostly Envy's PoV anyway. This one's a bit more refined, but because each piece is so short, you have to do a lot of reading between the lines, especially keeping in mind that Envy lies to themselves about their own sin and just generally has a twisted, fucked up self-perception.

**i.**

“Aren’t you cold?” Envy whispers a third time, their breath fogging up the glass. She staunchly ignores them, marching on, snow leaking into her toes. She can’t feel her feet, but this is nothing, nothing, she remembers sand in her socks, and Death breathing down her sweating neck, and her braids plastered to the side of her face. She remembers Shao May biting down, because the bear knew better than to growl in complaint.

How different is a desert from a tundra, really? She has a clan to save.

They finally stop talking, and stubborn silence thrums in the snow.

 

**ii.**

_We’ll all help her out!_

The jar lurches harshly, rocking. They bounce off the walls, their skin bruising – not that you can see the marks under their flesh, stiff and thick and ugly.

_Give her a bit of your food!_

Tear tracks are still drying on the dirty glass, and Envy fixates on them. She didn’t even do anything for those townspeople. All she has to do is _exist_ and they’re willing to twist an arm, break their backs to help her. It’s infuriating. They’re all so stupid, stooping to such levels for a little girl.

She keeps on running.

 

**iii.**

 “Do you eat?” she asks them, accepting a basket of apples and a few slices of strong cheese. The gifts are welcome, and she accepts them humbly; the way to Central is long.

“… No. I don’t need anything like that to stay alive.” A _tsk._ “I don’t know how you humans do it.”

“A Philosopher’s Stone…” For the second time in all the time they’ve been traveling, she peeks her big, _adorable_ eyes through the crack in the curtains. “Isn’t that kind of like food? Sustenance, maybe?”

“It’s _different._ ” Envy glowers at that stupid eye. “You wouldn’t get it.”

 

**iv.**

“Why wouldn’t I understand you?”

“Because you’re a _human._ ”

It’s late, and she’s talking instead of sleeping, asking the questions this time. They welcome it, begrudgingly; it breaks the monotony of the jar.

“Shao May understands me,” May murmurs, her face upturned to the stars, curled up on grass. “We’re different species, too. I don’t understand why people think humans are so different from everybody else. Shao May cares about me. Some humans don’t care about anybody. Doesn’t that make her a person?”

“You’re making me sick,” Envy mutters.

But they can’t sleep. Not for the rest of the night.

 

**v.**

Humans are weak and pathetic creatures, but the little squirt is a tough kid. She’s like the pipsqueak, hot-tempered and honor bound. Ready to believe that anything – from a suit of armor to a growling little bear – can be understood.

It’s tempting, and they resent it.

“What does your name mean?”

They’re getting close to Central. They can feel it, trying to sleep at night. And they’re silent now, the pink princess’s question souring their mouth. The answer on the tip of their tongue, humiliating and weak. Animals and humans and Homunculi. It’s bullshit.

“Envy?”

“Maybe you’ll find out someday.”

 

**vi.**

“We’re almost there,” Envy breathes, paws pressed up against the glass, feeling phantom muscles rippling across their skin, knowing they’re close, _close._ “The secret to immortality. It’s just up ahead.”

What would have happened, had she taken them to Xing instead? Would she have asked them all these questions, dangled the carrot of ‘you don’t have to be human to be understood’? No – no, little miss pink is just like everybody else, and Father’s the only one who _gets it_ , and they hate her for trying.

Soon. Soon, they won’t be ugly and small anymore. There’s nothing more to discuss.

 

**vii.**

As they form in front of her, skin bubbling and boiling and groaning, a thousand souls molding like clay, she wishes they’d gone to Xing. Because she thinks she knows a little bit, now. Because if she and Shao May aren’t so different, maybe the Homunculi aren’t, either. Because she knows why it was the moment all those townspeople selflessly helped her out that they started chirping a different tune.

But it’s too late. She can’t think about that now, or ever. She stiffens, goal in mind.

They leer at her, smirking.

“So kind of you,” they say. “Very kind.”


End file.
